Objects In The Rearview Mirror
by KrissyCaits
Summary: Brenda is overwhelmed with emotions when she is confronted with a memory from her past that she had thought was long since forgotten. [Brenda/Sharon - non romantic. In a way you've never really seen either of them before.] Predates The Closer and Major Crimes.
1. I Two Beds And A Coffee Machine

**Summary:** Brenda is overwhelmed with emotions when she is confronted with a memory from her past that she had thought was long since forgotten.

 **Pairing:** Brenda Leigh Johnson/Sharon Raydor (non-romantic)

 **Rating:** K+

 **Timeline:** Chapter 1 predates The Closer

 **Note:** This is the first of our "double ups", stories created by throwing two random prompts together. There will be more like this one soon!

* * *

 **Prompt I: Two Beds And A Coffee Machine  
** _(taken from the Savage Garden song) **  
**_

The diner was full. All booths were occupied. It wasn't that surprising giving this was a small town and it looked to be the only place around serving breakfast. The smell of coffee and pancakes made Sharon's stomach growl. She hadn't eaten since yesterday afternoon. She felt Emily tug at her hand and turned to look at her. From across the room, she saw one of the waitresses looking at her.

"Everything's full. We'll try the next town, baby," she whispered. The disappointment in Emily's eyes was heart breaking. She's been asking for waffles and orange juice for the past hour.

She shifted Ricky's weight a little higher onto her hip, his arms were still around her neck. Just as she was about to turn back to the door, she saw the woman in the far end booth stand up. She was more of a girl, really, with crazy wild blonde curls, worn out jeans and a white t-shirt with Atlanta written across the front. She was waving, beckoning for Sharon to come over.

Sharon hesitated as she observed Emily clinging to her hand, partially hiding behind her. She'd never been good with strangers.

"You look like you could use some coffee," the girl said and Sharon instantly detected the Southern accent. This girl was clearly not from around here. They were both strangers in this small little town.

"And you probably don't want to carry him back to your car like that." She pointed at Ricky's sleeping form. "Please, sit."

Sharon was too tired to decline and she silently pushed Emily into the booth. Her daughter moved over to the window seat and then turned to look at her mother. Sharon sat down beside her. There was enough room to lie Ricky down and he curled up into a ball as soon as she did.

"I'm Brenda," the blonde said.

"Sharon," Sharon replied. "This is Emily and that's Ricky." She swallowed. Her eyes were tired. The strain of driving for hours had worn her out. "Thank you."

Brenda just smiled and waved for the waitress to come over. She ordered two coffees, then glanced at Emily and smiled. "What do you want, sunshine?"

Emily looked up to her mom with big questioning eyes and Sharon nodded encouragingly.

"Orange juice, please." She shot another glance at her mom looking for confirmation. Sharon just smiled and Emily's eyes lit up. "And waffles."

"And for him?" The waitress asked, pointing at a sleeping Ricky.

"The same, please," Sharon answered, her eyes briefly fixing on her son. She contemplated ordering something for herself but she was too tired. The thought of eating turned her stomach.

"I'll have some pancakes, please," Brenda added, her smile still in place.

The waitress wrote down their order and then pointed at the wooden menu holder. Sharon saw the colouring pages and handed one to Emily. From inside the pocket of her apron, the waitress took a small box of crayons, gave them to Emily and winked. "If you finish that before I bring your waffles, I'll get you a hot chocolate too. How does that sound?"

Emily immediately started colouring and Sharon, for the first time since leaving the house last night, felt like she could relax. She sunk a little deeper into the red leather of the booth she was sharing with Brenda and felt the tension begin to slip away. Her eyes were fixed on the girl in front of her. She guessed Brenda couldn't be any older than eighteen. She still had that youthful innocence but there was something about her that betrayed she had seen more than her appearance would suggest. Perhaps it was the inquisitive way she looked back at Sharon, almost daring her to ask what a girl like her was doing in a place like this.

Sharon didn't ask.

"How long have you been on the road?"

Sharon sighed and answered, "Too long."

They sat in silence for a while, both watching Emily as she paid particular attention to colouring in the hat on the clown's head. It was decorated with flowers and Emily was using all the colours. Sharon felt the lump in her throat and tried to swallow it down. After everything Emily had seen and heard, she still looked for the brightness in things.

"You're not from around here, are you?" Brenda asked, severing the silence that had been hanging between them.

Sharon shook her head. Just a little jerk. She didn't want to say much else. Even though Brenda didn't know her, she didn't feel it was right for the girl to become involved in what she was leaving behind. So instead she studied the blonde for a moment before asking, "I gather you're not either?"

"Don't hear many Southern accents in this neck of the woods, do ya?" Brenda grinned. "But you're right. I ain't from around here. I'm just..." There was a pause, almost as if she was considering her choice of words more carefully. "Passin' through."

"To where?"

"Anywhere." Brenda fingered a blonde curl and her gaze drifted out of the window, to somewhere on the horizon perhaps. Somewhere Sharon couldn't see.

"How long has he been asleep?" Brenda changed the subject quickly and effortlessly. Like she was used to doing it, Sharon thought.

"An hour or so. Didn't sleep much during the night. I don't think he's a fan of sleeping in the car."

Brenda stared at Sharon with wide eyes. "You drove all night? When did you last sleep?"

Sharon didn't make eye contact. "Some time ago."

Brenda didn't comment and Sharon didn't say anything else. Instead Brenda went back to staring out of the window and Sharon suddenly felt like the young blonde was looking for something. Or someone. Her brown eyes darted across the cars in the parking lot, over the two men talking on the sidewalk, to the woman and her child walking across the street. Brenda was watching those people, it seemed.

The waitress returned and placed two steaming mugs of coffee in front of them and a glass of orange juice in front of Emily. She gave the glass intended for Ricky to Sharon and she pushed it to the far end of the table. Emily looked up, smiling, and the waitress smiled back at her before disappearing into the kitchen to get their food. Emily put down her crayons. The picture was finished. Just like the waitress had wanted.

When she returned with the waffles and put them down in front of Emily, the little girl beamed with happiness. The waitress checked to see if there was anything they needed but Brenda shook her head. Sharon softly nudged Ricky and the little boy stirred before lifting up his head. Tired blue eyes looked around in confusion for a moment but when he spotted the waffles on the table he sat up with a jolt and picked up his fork.

Brenda asked Emily about school and Emily told her about her friends and her teachers and how the other day someone had brought their cat in for show and tell. Sharon listened, silently aching inside, as Emily described how they would start preparing for Easter next week. How was she going to explain to her daughter that she wouldn't be going back to that school, that she would not be seeing her teachers and her friends again?

Leaving the house in the middle of the night, their footsteps muffled because she had told her children not to wear their shoes until they were outside, had been the only way she knew how to give them another chance, another start at something they should've had from the beginning. But as they left their father slept in the bedroom, drunk and having squandered yet more money. It had been three weeks since she had last seen him and last night had been the night she decided that Emily and Ricky deserved more. And now here she was, sitting in a small diner in this godforsaken town sixty miles away from Los Angeles, the city she was heading to, having breakfast with a stranger who harboured secrets of her own.

Brenda kept Emily and Ricky talking for as long as it took for Sharon to finish her coffee. Emily tried to mimic Brenda's Southern accent, causing them all to laugh, and Brenda told Emily about Atlanta, where she was from, and how there were peaches growing on trees in her parents' backyard. When Emily asked if there was a swing on the tree and Brenda answered there was because her daddy had made one, Emily turned to her mother and asked if they could go to Atlanta.

"Maybe another time, sweetheart," Sharon smiled as she looked at Brenda. They shared a look of understanding. There wasn't going to be another time.

The conversation carried on for a few more minutes, until Ricky had cleared the last of the maple syrup from his plate, and Brenda couldn't help but grin when he tried to wipe his sticky fingers on a napkin. When she looked back at Sharon, she noticed the way the brunette was twirling a strand of hair around her index finger. Sharon didn't seem to notice she was doing it and Brenda watched her for a few moments longer before eventually averting her eyes.

When their plates were cleared and their glasses and coffee mugs empty, Brenda reached inside the bag at her feet and pulled out a small key. She pushed it across the table towards Sharon and said, "I have a room in the motel across the road. I've got to go out for a few hours but you're welcome to use it."

"I… I can't…" Sharon began to object but Brenda shook her head.

"You haven't slept. I can't let you drive off knowing you're tired. It wouldn't be safe. There are clean towels in the bathroom if you want to take a shower and there's a TV in case the kids don't sleep." Brown eyes found green. "You need to rest, Sharon."

Sharon accepted the key. The metal felt cold against her fingers. "Thank you," she said softly. Then she looked up, green eyes meeting brown once again. "Why are you doing this?"

Brenda stood up and swung her bag over her shoulder. She put on her sunglasses and then answered, "Let's just say I understand what it's like to be runnin' from something." She lowered her sunglasses just enough so she could look Sharon in the eye. Sharon was struck by how little Brenda suddenly looked like the innocent girl. Now she looked like a woman who knew what she was doing,

"Room 27. Take as long as you need."

Sharon watched Brenda walk out of the diner and followed her with her eyes until the girl crossed the street and disappeared from sight. Then she looked down at the key in her hand and closed her fingers tightly around it before prompting Emily to get up. She scooped Ricky up and with him planted on her hip and Emily holding her hand, Sharon crossed the road and started walking towards the motel.

Room 27 was on the second floor and Sharon tentatively stepped inside and as she put Ricky down and Emily sprinted past her, she took in the sight in front of her. She had seen it before. It seemed that some things never changed, no matter how far she ran. Two beds and a coffee machine. A hideous picture on the faded yellow walls. A door that led to the bathroom. She dropped her bag at her feet and closed the door behind her. Emily had climbed on one of the beds and was hoisting her brother up. The two of them began pulling pillows towards them and Sharon didn't have the heart to tell them to stop.

She crossed the room and lay herself down on the other bed, rolling onto her side so she could see her children. The mattress was surprisingly soft and the sheets smelt clean. Neither bed looked like it had been slept in and Sharon couldn't help but wonder if Brenda had even slept here at all. Then she looked back at the children and sighed. Emily also lay on her side, Ricky tucked up beside her, already asleep. Emily looked back at her mother. She smiled and Sharon smiled in return before softly saying, "Go to sleep."

Sharon only fell asleep after Emily's eyes fell shut.

~()~

Brenda quietly opened the motel room door and held her breath when it creaked. She listened but stepped inside the room when she didn't hear anything. She softly closed the door behind her and when she looked up, her gaze fell on the two beds. She felt her heart swell in her chest when she saw the little boy and girl curled up beside each other, the girl's arm draped protectively around her little brother. Her brown curls hid part of her pretty little face and she appeared to be sleeping soundly.

Then Brenda's eyes drifted to the other bed and, to her surprise, she found Sharon crying. She had her back turned towards the door, probably to make sure her children wouldn't see her cry in case they woke up, and hadn't heard Brenda come in. Brenda stood nailed to the floor, uncertain about what to do next. Closing the door again would maybe rouse Sharon but walking into the room didn't seem like an option either.

Brenda resisted the urge to walk over to Sharon and touch her, even though all her instincts told her to cross the room and sit down beside her on the bed. That was not why she had come back here. She had not come back here to check on Sharon. She'd come back to the room to pick up the bag of clothes in the wardrobe and to leave a few things behind. She'd get in her car and leave this godforsaken town. But now that she saw her and heard the sobs, Brenda couldn't walk away.

"Sharon?" She'd called the other woman's name before she fully realised it and Sharon sat up with a jolt and instantly wiped at her eyes. Brenda saw her blink in confusion.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to walk in on you like this," Brenda apologised. She felt her cheeks flush a deep pink. "I… I just needed to get…. And I heard…." She gave up trying to explain herself and hesitantly walked across the room until she reached the side of the bed. "Are you ok?"

"I will be," Sharon answered, her voice thick with tears. Her eyes were red and swollen and she looked up at Brenda. "But thank you for asking."

"It's the least I can do," Brenda replied. She glanced at the sleeping children. "You don't want them to see you like this, do you?"

Sharon shook her head. "They've seen enough."

Brenda took a deep breath. "You can't keep runnin' forever, Sharon." Brown eyes met green. "The road runs out eventually."

Sharon couldn't help but smile. "You're very wise for someone who's barely old enough to have graduated High School." She cocked her head, tried to read the younger woman's face but found very little. "Where does your road end, Brenda?"

"I don't know," Brenda admitted. She and Sharon looked at each other for another moment before Brenda turned around. "You really should sleep. The room is paid for until tomorrow so you can take as long as you need. I'll just get my stuff and…."

"Will you stay?" Sharon's voice was soft and Brenda turned back around. Sharon was still sitting up. "Just for a little while?"

Brenda hesitated but then nodded. She wanted to ask why Sharon wanted her to stay. She was a stranger to her, knew nothing about her other than her name.

"I just…" Sharon's voice was small. "The thought of being alone…"

She knew she would be alone from here on out. Just her and the children. There would be no more Jack. She had been prepared for that but right now, on the dawn of their new life, the thought of truly being alone, was terrifying. So terrifying that she turned to a stranger, a girl no older than eighteen, to keep her company for a little while. Until the feeling passed or until she fell asleep. Or until Brenda decided to leave.

Slowly Brenda sat down on the bed. She didn't speak She folded her hands in her lap, unsure about what to do with herself, and occasionally glanced at Sharon. The brunette now lay on her side, facing Brenda, and she had closed her eyes. The longer she watched the more Brenda saw Sharon relax. The features of her face softened and some of the lines seemed a little less deep. Her breathing evened out and after a few more minutes, Brenda very carefully reached out and pushed a strand of hair behind Sharon's ear. Sharon didn't stir and Brenda knew she was asleep.

Then she stood up, crossed the room and grabbed her duffel bag from the bottom of the closet, swung it over her shoulder and walked back to the door. As she passed the desk, she took a few items from inside the bag and placed them on the floor, then found the envelope behind the zip and propped it up against the lamp. Brenda looked back over her shoulder one last time before stepping out into the bright afternoon sunshine. As she walked down to the car park and got behind the wheel, she hoped Sharon and her kids would be alright.

She'd never know.

~()~

Sharon woke a few hours later, panic overwhelming her as she didn't recognise her surroundings. She needed a few moments to realise where she was and what had happened but then she remembered the diner, the blonde girl named Brenda and the motel. It was still light outside and a quick glance at her watch confirmed it was just after one. Sharon's eyes fixed on the other bed and she sighed in relief when she saw Emily and Ricky still asleep, her son wrapped up in her daughter's arms. She then remembered Brenda sitting on the end of the bed, silently watching over her until she fell asleep.

Sharon slipped off the bed and padded to the small window. She peered through the blinds. The sun was high in the sky and there wasn't a cloud in sight. People were going about their business in the street and she noticed the cars parked outside the building were still the same ones she had seen that morning. When she turned away her gaze fell on the white envelope on the desk. Her name was written across the front in big capitals. She picked it up and inside she found a small white note.

 _I've left some food and water under the desk. My Mama told me to be kind to strangers and reach out a helping hand. Stay safe, Sharon. And maybe one day you'll be able to help someone else. Till we meet again,_

 _Brenda Leigh._

Sharon slipped the note back in the envelope and carefully tucked it in the back pocket of her jeans. She doubted she would ever see Brenda Leigh again.


	2. II Poison

**Summary:** Brenda is overwhelmed with emotions when she is confronted with a memory from her past that she had thought was long since forgotten.

 **Pairing:** Brenda Leigh Johnson/Sharon Raydor (non-romantic)

 **Rating:** K+

 **Timeline:** Chapter 2 connects to the Season 5 episode "Dead Man's Hand" from The Closer (5x15)

 **Note:** This is the first of our "double ups", stories created by throwing two random prompts together. There will be more like this one soon!

* * *

 **Prompt II: Poison** _ **  
**_

There weren't many times where a case left Brenda with a bitter taste in her mouth but there was something about the aftermath of the Ally Moore case that made her feel uncomfortable. Partly it was the realisation that she had indeed not worked as hard in the early stages of the case as perhaps she ought to have but secondly, and more disturbingly, Brenda was angry at herself for not having seen through Ally's charade sooner.

Most surprising of all was the responsibility she felt towards Sharon Raydor. Ally had manipulated her superior perfectly, had played her like a fiddle, and had betrayed all the trust and confidence Raydor had in her for her own gain. Standing across from the Captain in the morgue as they reassembled the two guns in perfect unison, Brenda had caught a glimpse of something behind the brunette's usually cool demeanour and what she saw had startled her.

Now the day was almost over and Brenda reflected on the events. There was something about that brief and unguarded moment with Sharon in the morgue that wouldn't leave her alone. Every time she closed her eyes she saw it again; like some kind of a distant flash back.

The soft knock against her office door made her look up. Captain Raydor stood in the doorway, clutching a file. There was a hint of disdain in her voice when she said, "You are not going to believe why Ally Moore wanted to kill her husband."

"You mean there's a better reason than the affair she was having with Sargent Dunn?" Brenda asked as she removed her reading glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"That all depends on how you feel about real estate," Raydor answered and walked up to the chair across from Brenda's desk. She handed the file to Brenda as she sat down, crossing her legs. "Ally and Shawn Moore had an interest only loan on their house that was about to reset and they were going to lose their home. Unless…."

"Unless one of them died and the mortgage insurance kicked in," Brenda finished Sharon's sentence. Her brown eyes were fixed on the older woman and she searched for whatever it was she had seen earlier in the morgue. If Sharon Raydor wore some kind of a mask that shielded something deeper, she had put it firmly back in place.

"Well, it's awfully hard to refinance these days," Brenda added dryly and picked up the file, put her glasses back on and studied the information in front of her. She heard Raydor suck in a breath but the words she heard were not the ones she expected. She looked back up, removing her glasses once again.

"I would also like to say that I'm fully aware that at the beginning of this investigation I was a total bitch."

Brenda opened her mouth to answer but struggled to form a coherent sentence. "Uh… I'd say it was more in the middle… And near the end."

Was this really happening? Was she actually having this conversation with Sharon _goddamn_ Raydor?

"But I still believe that if you had talked to the husband earlier that he might…"

"He might still be alive." That was the second time in as many minutes that Brenda finished Sharon's sentence. And she couldn't deny that the Captain was right. She averted her eyes because Sharon's intense gaze suddenly felt a little too strong. "Yes, I've thought about that. And about how I might have resisted talking to him because…."

"Because I suggested it." This time Sharon finished Brenda's sentence.

It almost physically hurt to admit it and Brenda made a casual hand gesture. "It's possible." She folded her hands and leaned in a little. "But I did wanna say that I think it might be beneficial for the LAPD if we…"

Their words got lost then. Sharon told Brenda that she should do what she said and Brenda said that they needed to work together better.

And then Brenda laughed. And to her surprise, Sharon laughed too, albeit a little shallow. But the sound of their laughter mixed together was strangely…. Familiar.

Sharon fingered a strand of dark hair around her finger. Just for a moment and then she seemed to realise what she was doing and she quickly dropped her hand back in her lap. The seconds of silence in which what had just happened sunk in seemed to last longer than either of them realised and when Brenda looked back up, she was struck by the almost awkward expression on Sharon's face. She looked a little nervous and then, in the length of just a single heartbeat, Brenda saw her.

The young woman standing in the diner doorway, a sleeping boy on her hip and a frightened little girl holding her hand. Green eyes that looked around the crowded tables in search of a friendly face and she'd been about to turn around, fade back into world from which she had emerged, before seeing the blonde curly haired girl in the back of the restaurant stand up.

Brenda saw her now, twenty years later. Those same green eyes had hardened, and Sharon's face bore a few more lines, but she was right here, in front of her, and only now did she see it. She had thought about her from time to time, always wondering what had happened to her. Sometimes she would swear she saw her face in a crowd somewhere but when she turned to look, it was never her.

And yet she had been here all along.

Then Sharon spoke, clearly oblivious to Brenda's realisation. "The thing is…."

"We just don't like each other." It slipped out before Brenda even fully realised what she was saying. Her mind was spinning and she fought to hold on to the poker face she had been wearing throughout all of this.

Brenda spoke on autopilot, agreed with whatever Sharon said, but whenever she looked at her, she didn't see the woman in the grey suit but the woman wearing the worn out jeans and button down white cotton shirt, her hair tied back in a messy ponytail. What a far cry she was from the woman sitting across from her right now and Brenda struggled to even believe it was the same person. But in her heart she knew.

Sharon Raydor, the woman she hated more than anyone else in the entire building, was the woman she had watched cry quietly in her motel room. She had seen the tears, had honoured Sharon's request to stay with her and not leave her alone. She had watched her sleep, her face lit up by the faint glow of sunlight falling through the window. It was in that light where Brenda felt she got to see something other people probably rarely saw; Sharon's face void of a mask. She had watched her sleep for longer than she ought to have done but she'd been unable to take her eyes off her.

It was Sharon who stood up and said goodnight first and Brenda said goodnight in return, turned away when Sharon was about to leave her office. But as she heard the Captain's heels fade out into the Murder Room, Brenda suddenly rose to her feet and almost ran out after her. Provenza, who was still at his desk, shot her a puzzled look as she sprinted past his desk and Brenda caught up with Sharon by the elevators.

"Captain?" she called, causing the older woman to turn around. She stopped maybe four or five steps away from Sharon, panting slightly. Her heart thundered in her chest and the blood rushed through her ears. "Wait."

Sharon arched an eyebrow in surprise. She seemed guarded and unsure of why Brenda had followed her out here. "Chief?"

Brenda's throat was dry and the words came out in between shallow breaths. She didn't know why she struggled to speak so much. "My Mama told me to be kind to strangers and reach out a helping hand." She repeated the words from the note she had left twenty years ago word for word. Even with the distance between her and Sharon, she could see the other woman's eyes soften.

"Stay safe," Sharon repeated the next two words from the note and she smiled. It was a sad smile, the kind of smile that carried a memory. "I wondered how long it would take you to remember."

Brenda blinked, stunned. "You knew?"

"Oh, I knew," Sharon admitted. Her voice was softer than Brenda had ever heard it. Gone was the stoic mask she had observed earlier and she got to see a glimpse of the woman behind it. "I knew the moment I saw you in that hospital corridor." She shrugged, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She didn't make eye contact and chose to stare at the floor instead. "There aren't that many Brenda Leigh's in Los Angeles that speak with a Southern accent, you know."

Brenda took a hesitant step in Sharon's direction but was careful not to come too close. "Why didn't you say anythin'?"

"Would you have said anything if you were me?" Sharon asked. "Imagine walking into a hospital corridor and seeing a face from your past, a past you tried to get away from for so long." She pushed her hands into the pockets of her blazer. "I saw you and all I remembered was the morning you watched me and my children in one of the most vulnerable moments of our lives."

She didn't have to say it out loud. Brenda knew what she meant. She had seen Sharon cry, had seen her close to falling apart.

"You were afraid I was goin' to use it against you." The back of Brenda's throat suddenly felt like she'd swallowed a handful of glass and she was actually surprised she didn't feel offended or insulted.

She looked at Sharon. This was the woman whom she could easily have used for target practice at the firing range any day of the week, the woman she complained to Fritz about whenever their paths crossed. A woman who, on more than one occasion, had left her blood boiling.

And yet she was the same woman who had slept in Brenda's bed twenty years ago; the same woman who had found safety and shelter with a stranger and had dared to trust someone she had never met before. The woman who had clearly been running from something and had been desperate to start over. How was it possible she felt so differently about her now than she had done back then? Had the hatred poisoned her that much? Had she ever even stopped to think about the other side of Sharon, the human side? She'd only ever focused on the woman she saw at work and she had forgotten that, just like her, Sharon went home at night to a whole different life.

"I…I should go," Sharon stammered when the elevator doors opened. She tore her eyes away from Brenda and before the blonde had a chance to say anything else, the doors had closed again and Sharon was gone.

Brenda continued to stare at the spot where Sharon had stood long after the other woman had disappeared. When she finally regained some kind of composure, she went back to her office to collect her purse and muttered a quiet goodbye to Provenza.

She fled out of the building and out into the warm Los Angeles night, her lungs eagerly expanding as she took in large gulps of fresh air.

Brenda found her way back to her car, got behind the wheel and started the engine. She drove home on autopilot and sat in the driveway for twenty minutes, her hands still on the wheel but with the engine switched off. She stared at the front door. The house was dark. Fritz had gone to bed. The little green neon lights on the dashboard showed10. 21 pm. She had been at work all day and all night and now coming home felt like the wrong things to do.

Sharon Raydor was _Sharon._ The Sharon. How had she not known? How was it even possible that the head of FID, the woman she had come to loathe more than any other person in this entire world, was the same woman she had met in that diner twenty years ago? The same woman she had watched cry herself to sleep in her bed.

Without realising what she was doing, Brenda turned the key again and the engine roared back to life. She reversed off the drive and, after making a phone call she didn't think she' d ever make, she wrote down Sharon's address on the back of her hand with a pen she found in her purse and drove off into the night.

~()~

Sharon lived in a condo about half an hour from Brenda's duplex and after flashing her badge at the doorman downstairs, the man let her in. She rode the elevator up to the eleventh floor and quietly walked down the corridor before reaching Sharon's door. Brenda's heart pounded in her chest as she knocked and with baited breath she waited. Moments later she heard the sound of a chain being moved and then the door opened.

Sharon was backlit by the yellow light coming from the hallway and she had her arms folded across her chest and an almost unreadable expression on her face. She leaned a little against the doorframe and the hint of a smile spread across her lips when she saw Brenda standing on her doorstep. She was momentarily struck by just how little the other woman had changed. The same crazy blonde curls, the same dark brown eyes. It was as if no time had passed at all.

The moment she had first laid eyes on Brenda several weeks ago on that fateful night in the middle of a hospital corridor, Sharon had recognised her immediately. The sane southern drawl, the same face, just twenty years later. It had startled her more than it had frightened her but in that moment she had looked for the teenager who had sat next to her on the bed but instead had found a strong, stubborn woman who had not been prepared to give Sharon so much as an inch.

Right in that moment, Sharon's defences had gone up. Because Brenda knew something about her and she couldn't afford to let that vulnerability be used. She didn't know if Brenda recognised her too but she hadn't been prepared to wait and find out. She had come too far and had worked too hard for anyone to use her past against her. But as the days went on and she spent more time with her, it had become clear that Brenda didn't recognise her at all and Sharon had dared to let her guard down just a little.

There were moments where she had considered asking Brenda if she really didn't remember but whenever those thoughts crossed her mind, the blonde Chief pulled some kind of a stunt that left Sharon reeling and she always ended up not saying anything. Until today, when Brenda had finally remembered.

Brenda stared at Sharon, her mind trapped in what felt like some strange alternate universe where she and Sharon were completely different people. She couldn't ignore the fact that once, they had been different people indeed and they had known each other. And now... Now they were nothing. Had she become so overwhelmed by her initial dislike for the woman that she had completely failed to see her as anything other than Captain Raydor? How was it possible she had felt such loathing for her right up until the moment she remembered who Sharon was? Would she have remembered sooner if she hadn't been so focused on hating Sharon?

"Chief Johnson, are you going to stand and stare at me all night?" Sharon asked.

Hi," Brenda shyly said when Sharon's voice snapped her out of her thoughts. Suddenly coming here felt like the most ridiculous idea ever. She was blushing and fiddled with a button on her blazer.

Sharon's green eyes lit up. "Hey." She smiled. "I was kind of expecting you."

"Really?" Brenda questioned and Sharon nodded.

They looked at each other and it was as if they were seeing each other for the very first time. The air was loaded, thick with unanswered questions. Their gazes locked. They were in the same place, only a few steps away from each other, and yet it felt like they were worlds apart.

Brenda had to ask. She had to know. She couldn't keep wondering if somehow Sharon had managed to walk these corridors every day, knowing Brenda was just two floors below her. "How did you do it? How did you look at me and remember?"

"How did you not?" Sharon asked softly.

Seeing Brenda that night in the hospital had ripped open something she thought she'd left behind. A different life, one she didn't want to think about but couldn't deny. She had been a different person then and she had long since walked away from the shadows that had haunted her.

"I'm sorry, Brenda."

"Sorry? Sorry for what?" The blonde knitted her eyebrows together.

Sharon averted her eyes. "For never thanking you for what you did back then."

"You're here," Brenda pointed out. "You seem to be doing well." She clumsily moved from one foot onto the other and then she smiled. The image of the sleeping boy and the girl wanting waffles flashed through her mind. "How are your children? Emily and Ricky, right?"

"They're doing well," Sharon answered and Brenda could hear the pride in her voice. "Ricky recently moved to San Francisco to work in IT and Emily lives in New York. She's a dancer, a ballerina." Her grip on the doorknob loosened a little and she hesitantly took a step aside. "Do you want to come in?" Green eyes found brown. "There is a lot to talk about."

"Yes," Brenda answered as she stepped over the threshold into Sharon's condo. "Yes, I suppose there is."

The door closed behind her and in the middle of that hallway the two women saw each other in a completely different light. Then Sharon slowly extended her hand. Brenda accepted it.

"My name is Sharon," the brunette said, the hint of a smile playing across her lips.

Brenda smiled too. "My name is Brenda." A moment's silence followed and then she added, "It's nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you too."


End file.
